Takako Kobayashi, is a Japanese international student, who moved to Vancouver six months ago to learn English. She believes that Japan has a better recycling system than Vancouver, and that Vancouver should have programs educating newcomers about being green and how to recycle effectively.
“We follow the way of the place we come from and it’s very different from Vancouver,” says Kobayashi.
She says that in 2001, Japan defined 34 waste categories with thorough specifications such as size, material, utility and colour. According to the Council for PET Bottle Recycling, Japan recycles 72.1 per cent of the plastic bottles it uses contrary to the U.S. with only 30 per cent.
Information courtesy of Statistics Canada, 2004
To Vancouver’s credit, but unbeknownst to people like Kobayashi, the city of Vancouver has organized many educational programs to promote “green” living. For example, there exists a food-composting program that is specifically focused on the Punjabi community in order to get citizens to put their organic materials in green bins. There are translated educational videos and materials that are in Punjabi, ensuring that the Punjabi community have the opportunities to learn about the program in relevance to their cultures.
Madhu Toshniwal, an immigrant from India explains that sustainability is an important concept in India and that it is part of the culture. She says that any waste is frowned upon and everyone recycles, but she is not entirely happy with India’s public cleanliness.
Japanese International Student Takako Kobayashi (right) with friend Eman Abdulsalam.
“You keep the inside of your home very clean and you are recycling and not wasting all that is there. But [in] public space[s], people don’t respect the cleanliness of it, which I don’t think is a good thing,” says Toshniwal.
She believes that education on being more conscious about the environment and respecting public space would discourage such behaviours and encourage public cleanliness. With this in mind and knowing that a lot of people bring their habits from their home countries to Vancouver, Toshniwal suggests that Vancouver should hand out “To Do Lists” at the airport.
“It would make life a bit simpler,” she says.
I think Vancouver…needs to promote the green
lifestyle more and they have to keep going.
– Takoko Kobayashi, international student from Japan
Artie Zhong, a nine-year-old second generation Chinese-Canadian, translates for his mother that in Shanghai, they had a lot of garbage and that they didn’t have separated bins or garbage cans like in Vancouver.
“Shanghai had big garbage cans on the street and we put everything in them,” says Zhong’s mother. Like Toshniwal, Zhong believes that education, regulations, media and public influence could improve the habits of newcomers to Vancouver when it comes to how they recycle.
According to statistics from the Greenest City 2020 Action Plan, Vancouver has a footprint three times larger than what the Earth can sustain and it sends enough waste to the landfills and incinerators to fill up garbage trucks lined up from the city hall to Kamloops every year.
An official from city hall says that it needs the cooperation and collaboration of everyone, from corporations, organizations, the government, to citizens in order to achieve the green goals set by the Greenest City 2020 Action Plan. But for new comers like Kobayashi, she doesn’t feel the city is including the different communities.
“I think Vancouver…needs to promote the green lifestyle more and they have to keep going,” says Kobayashi.
